By Evan Minsker
on August 20, 2014 at 9:45 a.m. EDT

Le Guess Who? Festival takes place from November 20-23 at various venues across Utrecht, the Netherlands. Today, it's been announced that Michael Gira and Swans have curated a three-day program at the festival called Mouth to Mouth.

By Evan Minsker
on January 27, 2014 at 9:34 a.m. EST

Photo by Matias Corral

Following their 2012 epic The Seerand their recent live LP Not Here/Not Now, Swans have announced their next album. It's called To Be Kind and it's out May 13 on Michael Gira's Young God imprint in North America and on Mute everywhere else.

By Jenn Pelly
on October 14, 2013 at 3:43 p.m. EDT

Poster drawing by Michael Gira

Swans are currently at work on their next album, the follow-up to their 2012 epic The Seer. Recorded at Sonic Ranch studios near El Paso, Texas, the record is being produced by Michael Gira and engineered by John Congleton with an expected release in spring 2014. To raise funds for the record, they're selling a new live album, Not Here/Not Now, which Gira first announced this summer. The handmade, limited edition 2xCD release is available to order now from Young God.

By Tom Breihan
on July 7, 2010 at 1:25 p.m. EDT

Swans, Michael Gira's pioneering New York art-punk group, have returned. Gira has gotten the band-- or a new lineup of the band, anyway-- back together to tour and to record a new album. That album bears the ridiculously awesome title My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. Gira's own Young God Records will release it on September 21. UPDATE: That's the cover art above.

Gira's new Swans consist of the man himself, original member Norman Westberg, later-period members Christoph Hahn and Phil Puleo, and new guys Chris Pravdica (Flux Information Sciences/Services) and Thor Harris (Shearwater). A few other folks also show up on the record. Gira's buddy DevendraBanhart teams up with Gira's three-year-old daughter Saoirse to sing the charmingly titled "You Fucking People Make Me Sick". Old Swans member and current R.E.M./Robyn Hitchcock drummer Bill Rieflin plays a bunch of instruments. And Mercury Rev's Grasshopper plays what a press release calls "a swarm of mandolins".

By Tom Breihan
on May 10, 2010 at 2:35 p.m. EDT

Back in January, Michael Giraannounced that he would reformSwans, the pioneering New York postpunk/industrial band he led from the early 80s until their 1997 breakup. The newly reconstituted Swans are at work on a new album, which Gira is currently mixing. And now, he's announced the first round of dates for the new Swans.

By Tom Breihan
on January 20, 2010 at 10:50 a.m. EST

As we reported last week, the legendary New York postpunk crew Swans is getting back together for a new album and tour. Frontman Michael Gira is financing the new album with sales of I Am Not Insane, a limited edition CD/DVD package, which features demos of songs that might make their way onto the Swans album.

Gira is now sellingI Am Not Insane on the website for his label, Young God Records, and he's making it available for a number of different pricing tiers. For $100 or more, you get to be listed as an executive producer on the Swans album. (Thanks to KM Brooks for the tip.)

Yup, for the rest of your life, you'd get to list "Swans executive producer" on your resume, which would be pretty cool. All the details on I Am Not Insane and its different pricing tiers are here.

By Tom Breihan
on January 11, 2010 at 1:10 p.m. EST

Former SwansfrontmanMichael Gira took to the band's MySpace page on Saturday to announce that the pioneering New York postpunk band will reunite for a new album and "tour(s)". Thanks to Shane Lange for the tip.

By Tom Breihan
on April 16, 2009 at 12:45 p.m. EDT

Some pairings just make sense. James Blackshaw is a London-based guitar prodigy who's released seven albums' worth of sprawling, unpredictable instrumental 12-string compositions since 2004. Young God Records is the New York-based indie founded by Swans/Angels of Light frontmanMichael Gira, the label responsible for discovering DevendraBanhart and releasing music from the likes of Akron/Family and Larkin Grimm. If there's such a thing as a Sub Pop for apocalyptic acoustic music, Young God is it. This pair wasÂ pretty much made for each other, and on May 26, Blackshaw will release The Glass Bead Game, his first album for Young God.

Blackshaw recorded the album with a few accompanists, including Current 93 multi-instrumentalist Joolie Wood. The album includes just five tracks, but most of the songs are long; the final track, "Arc", runs nearly 19 minutes.

In a statement, Gira had this to say about the signing: "Recently, driving around with the car stereo blasting [Blackshaw's] music, I found myself inexplicably weeping. Why??? The music's not sad, or even mournful really. It's just exquisite in an ineffable way, and taps into a place, a dream place, or a pre-thought place, which each of us might recognize was always there inside of us and is suddenly revealed. Like coming home after a painful journey, I suppose... "

Below, we've got the tracklist for The Glass Bead Game and the full text of Gira's statement.

By Grayson Currin
on February 10, 2009 at 1:25 p.m. EST

Michael Gira hit such a despondent nadir Sunday night that he seemed to startle even himself. During his hour-long solo set, which served as the finale for Knoxville, Tennessee's inaugural Big Ears Festival , the former Swans frontman followed his old band's tune "Failure" ("Some people live in hell/ Many bastards succeed/ But I've learned nothing/ I can't even elegantly bleed") with Angels of Light's "My Brother's Man. "No, God will never understand/ I'll crush him in my brother's hand," he screamed, locks of slick gray hair falling to the side of his face as he stomped his black leather boot against the worn black stage of Knoxville's Bijou Theatre. "I am the god of this fucking land/ I am the god of this fucking land."

Michael Gira

"Oh, the gentle folk stylings of M. Gira ," he said when the song was over, cracking a coy smile for the cheering audience. "I'm the kind of guy you invite over to your house to babysit your two-year-old daughter." As expected, Gira's set had been stern and scowling, full of references to miscreant politicians and crucifixion offerings. But after those two songs, he eased off, taking a sip of whiskey from a blue Solo cup and handing the rest of the bottle to a fan in the front row. He waved his hand and encouraged her to pass it through the crowd of 100 or so attendees. Everyone should share, he suggested, and the firewater—12-year George Dickel whiskey, manufactured about 200 miles west of Knoxville—eventually reached the back of the room. Even though Gira ended his set with "Sometimes I Dream I'm Hurting You", an Angels of Light song he wrote about a dream in which he stabbed his then-pregnant wife repeatedly in the stomach, things felt somehow friendlier.